


to make the perfect reply

by witching



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Communication, Friends to Lovers, Insecurity, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Philosophy, Religious Conflict, Religious Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 06:39:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19847647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witching/pseuds/witching
Summary: some things have gone unspoken, questions unasked and unanswered, and feelings forbidden, for far too long.





	to make the perfect reply

**Author's Note:**

> – _what do i want?_
> 
> – _nothing which you’d call indecent, though i don’t see what’s wrong with it myself. you want to be brothers-in-arms, to have him to yourself… to be shipwrecked together, to perform valiant deeds to earn his admiration, to save him from certain death, to die for him – to die in his arms, like a spartan, kissed once on the lips… or just run his errands in the meanwhile. you want him to know what cannot be spoken, and to make the perfect reply, in the same language._
> 
> // tom stoppard, _the invention of love_
> 
> i got carried away but this originated with a prompt on tumblr from _a softer world_ : "i would love you more if you were someone who could love me. (buy your love by playing make believe.)"

"Did I ever tell you why they kicked me out?" Crowley's voice is foggy and distant. He stares into his glass as if it might hold whatever answers he needs.

Aziraphale shakes his head. "No. It never seemed –" relevant, he should say, it just never came up, I never even thought about it. "It never seemed appropriate to ask." Well, so much for that. 

"I asked too many questions," Crowley says. "Was a curious old angel, I was. Always wondering, and that's the same as doubting, up there. Wondering and doubting and rebelling, all bundled up together in Heaven's eyes."

He sounds odd; this is not his usual fast talking banter, nor his wild drunken ramblings. The tone is different, something unrecognizable to Aziraphale, soft and hazy like the first hints of gray at sunrise. Aziraphale assumes it's down to the topic of conversation, but he can't quite parse why Crowley would bring it up now, after six thousand years of not talking about it. The end of the world has come and gone, and things are meant to be back to normal, and this is decidedly abnormal.

Crowley is looking down still, down into the depths of his drink, and he is humming a song that Aziraphale distantly recognizes. When he speaks again, there's a hint of a break in his voice. "I never rebelled. Didn't want to. Wasn't in the cards for me. Kind of, well, I kind of liked who I was, for the most part. Didn't mean to – I didn't mean to."

Aziraphale tries not to pity him – Crowley wouldn’t like that, Crowley would hate to be pitied, and he would sense it and it would upset him. He’s always seemed fairly content with his life, for as long as they’ve known each other, he’s never shown an inkling of regret or remorse. At least, not for falling. Not for who and what he is. 

Aziraphale wants to understand, more than anything, because he is scared. Because if someone like Crowley (someone good, someone kind, someone worthy of love) could be cast out without even properly rebelling, that says something for Aziraphale’s own precarious position in Heaven. He is not perfect, has never claimed to be perfect, but he trembles now to think how many times he has defied them over the years, how many times he has wondered – why here, why now, why this, why  _ him, _ why must it be so? 

Where is the tipping point? he wonders now. How close has he come, fraternizing with the adversary, thwarting the apocalypse, staring down the barrel of Heaven’s proverbial gun and showing himself untethered and unafraid? Why haven’t they done it already?

He puts on a tone of idle curiosity; he doesn’t want to show his hand, doesn’t want Crowley to know how significant this is. “What kind of questions did you ask, exactly?”

“Just the sort of shit you’d expect of me, really,” Crowley says. “Why are we here? I said. Is there more out there? How much are we capable of? Why are things forbidden to us, we who have no limits to ourselves, we who exist outside of existence?” He takes a deep breath, shakes his head heavily. “Then the rebellion started, and I – I didn’t join them, I didn’t even support them, I just – I just wondered.”

Aziraphale can’t stop himself from asking. “What did you wonder?”

Crowley pauses for a long time, a worrying length of time, and he isn’t breathing; he doesn’t need to, but he almost always does it anyway, and the absence of it makes for a strange and unsettling silence. 

“We aren’t supposed to have free will,” he says after a while. “So if he, Lucifer I mean, if he got ambitious, if he rebelled, that’s because She made him that way. If She’s, you know, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, as they say, then a rebellion can’t just happen. She has to want it to happen.”

This is not news to Aziraphale. This is something he has known always, something he has tried to ignore that keeps coming back up. It is something he has thought about but never uttered aloud, for fear of being heard, for fear of being seen. “Why are we talking about this now?”

“I’m… well, I’m… wondering, now, if She didn’t have a similar plan for me,” Crowley says in a voice the size of a grain of rice. He locks his fingers together on the tabletop, digging his nails into his skin, and resolutely refuses to look at Aziraphale. “I know we’ve talked about it, with the apocalypse and everything, but I mean everything else, I mean, you know… me.”

“What about you?” The question is soft and tentative; he is not entirely sure he wants the answer.

Crowley pushes out a long exhale, the type of steadying breath that the internet told him would help in times like this, times when he can’t fathom his own reality with any kind of certainty. “If She could… plan for Lucifer to rebel, and for the Great Plan to go pear-shaped, couldn’t She have planned – I don’t know. Couldn’t She have planned everything?”

Aziraphale wrinkles his brow. “Yes, I should think so,” he says. “She’s the Almighty, it rather comes with the job, doesn’t it?”

“No,” Crowley answers without missing a beat. He briefly considers the possibility that Aziraphale fully understands what he means and that he simply has a different point of view on the issue, but he can’t entertain it for long. If Aziraphale doesn’t see what’s wrong with the picture, it’s because the picture is blurry, not because the angel’s eyesight is damaged. 

Crowley tries again: “Angel, what makes me me?”

Taken aback, the angel flounders for a moment, and then stammers, “I – I don’t know.” This is the wrong answer, potentially the worst answer imaginable.

“We’ve been friends for more than six thousand years,” Crowley murmurs, and his voice is hoarse and rough, like it’s one well-placed tap away from cracking down the middle. “Nobody knows me the way you do.”

Aziraphale proceeds cautiously. “Likewise, my dear.”

“So who  _ am  _ I, then? Is there any part of me that isn’t just a – a pawn? All of my decisions, my actions, my –” Crowley cuts himself off with a small, choked sob that catches him by surprise. He takes a few deep, shuddering breaths while the angel stares at him. “I have done so much in my life in spite of Her. I have worked so hard and I have been… so proud of myself, for growing beyond what I was meant to be, for figuring out how to carve my happiness out of what I was given.”

Silence settles over them like a plastic sheet, palpable and suffocating. This time there is the faint sound of their breathing to remind them that they exist, but the barrier of the quiet is not so easily permeated. Crowley looks up with his eyes wide and pushes through it with a sharp edge that nearly pierces Aziraphale’s heart. 

“What do we do now, angel?”

Aziraphale hears the wavering in Crowley’s voice and feels the beginnings of tears pricking the backs of his eyes. By the time he looks back to Crowley, the demon has averted his eyes again. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “There isn’t an instruction manual for this part.”

“There wasn’t for the last part, either,” Crowley points out.

“No,” Aziraphale concedes, “but there was a Plan. I always knew I could count on the Plan, and now… no more Plan.”

Crowley echoes “No more Plan,” and then he drains his glass. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do,” he continues, and he’s walking on eggshells now, “and I don’t even know what I  _ want  _ to do. Do you?”

The question forces Aziraphale to stop and really think for a minute, and Crowley takes the opportunity to keep talking. “Because I – I – whatever comes next, I don’t want to do it without you. I want to stay with you. Or – or I want you to stay with me. I want us to stay together.”

“Everything’s supposed to go back to the way it was,” Aziraphale murmurs distantly. 

“It can’t,” Crowley says, and he looks up now, looks harsh and intense into the depths of the angel’s eyes, and he frowns. 

Aziraphale frowns back, feeling his skin itch under the scrutiny, and shifts his gaze down to the floor. He hasn’t thought about the possibility of changing anything going forward, he hasn’t wanted to. Six thousand years has been plenty of time for him to consider his life, his job, his relationship with Crowley, and in all that time he’s never found a convincing enough reason to make a big change. It’s a risk, is the trouble, and he prefers the comfort of familiarity. He much prefers it to the idea that he could try to take a step forward and Crowley would pull him back; Crowley doesn’t want the same things as him, he can’t want the same things.

He sniffs and sets his jaw. “I don’t see why not.”

“Because – well, because…” Crowley trails off, unable to voice his true thoughts: it can’t go back to the way it was because he doesn’t want it to. Because the way it was didn’t work for them, it was precarious and fragile, and it was a consolation prize of a life. Crowley doesn’t want that anymore, doesn’t want to take the scraps that he can get from Aziraphale and keep pretending it doesn’t hurt. He wants more. He’s never been good at asking for what he wants.

“Because?” Aziraphale prompts him to continue.

“She wasn’t wrong, you know,” Crowley says instead. “Casting me out. I never belonged up there, but I was never stupid enough to say it outright. Or brave enough.” 

“Right,” Aziraphale says slowly, tentatively. “You didn’t rebel, you said.”

Crowley looks away now, at last, after staring so intensely at Aziraphale for so long that his eyes are beginning to burn. He looks away and he looks down at his hands again, and he thinks about how much he’s restrained himself and for how long, and he thinks about the electric feeling that lingered in his palm for days after Aziraphale touched his hand at the air base. A split second, but it set him on fire.

He shakes his head, takes a sip of his drink, which has miraculously refilled itself. “No, I didn’t,” he mutters, the bitterness in his tone nearly tangible. “I should have. Not that Hell is any better, but – I mean, I didn’t know that, at the time. I was just afraid.” He lowers his voice, and Aziraphale almost doesn’t hear him say, “I’m afraid now.”

Aziraphale furrows his brow. “Afraid of what? Hell? You think they’ll come after you?”

“I think they’re glad to be rid of me,” Crowley replies with a short laugh. “No, I’m afraid of this. You.”

“Me?”

“Us,” Crowley corrects himself. “Or… the lack thereof.”

Aziraphale stares at him. Crowley is still looking down at his hands on the table, gripping his glass nearly tight enough to shatter it, but he can feel the angel staring at him. He takes another drink, hoping the prolonged silence will compel Aziraphale to say something, but it doesn’t. Crowley takes a deep breath.

“I didn’t belong in Heaven,” he says, his voice gentle and apologetic and almost timid. “Never belonged in Hell, either, never wanted to. Just wanted to get out, mostly. And when I got out, they sent me up here, and I… I wasn’t made for this world, but I belong here.”

Aziraphale nods, humming the noncommittal acknowledgement of one who is following the thread of the conversation so far, but knows he will lose it soon. Crowley closes his eyes, hoping that Aziraphale understands what he’s about to say.

“You belong here, too,” he ventures, and he thinks it’s an okay thing to say, but he waits a moment before continuing, just in case Aziraphale reacts badly. He doesn’t. “I think,” – Crowley’s voice cracks, and he clears his throat – “I think we belong here together.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s blood runs cold at the demon’s words. Surely, he can’t mean – but what else could he mean? Aziraphale has never allowed that hope to bloom inside him, has always nipped it in the bud, because it’s impossible, and then it became possible but remained unthinkable, and then it became thinkable but remained unlikely. He has to ask, he has to be sure. “How do you mean, together?”

Crowley wrinkles his brow, gnaws at his lip for a few moments. "I mean… I think I was cut a raw deal, both of us were, and we've managed to make the most of it here on Earth. With each other. And I… well. I just can't see myself being happy without you in my life."

"I  _ am  _ in your life, Crowley." 

"I know that."

Aziraphale frowns deeply, placing his hands flat on the table with a bit too much force. "So what are you  _ afraid _ of, then?"

Crowley swallows down a bitter taste in his mouth. "Aziraphale," he murmurs, speaking low and slow, drawing out each syllable of the angel's name. "Aziraphale, do you think – could you ever love me?"

There's silence again, which Crowley could have seen coming. He doesn't dare risk a glance at the angel, doesn't want to see the expression on his face, whatever it is, horror or disgust or anger. He is thankful that Aziraphale is still sitting across from him, that he didn't get up and leave as soon as the words left Crowley's mouth. 

Aziraphale sniffs, not in the imperious and petulant manner he tends to use during arguments, when he feels superior, but a soft sound, involuntary. The way one sniffs in the midst of a cathartic crying session, or in the midst of a cruel allergy season. One tiny, quiet sniffle, and then he says:

"Yes."

It's very simple, that word, but it sounds like a sonnet backed by an orchestra, to Crowley's ears. It’s the answer he wanted, but not the one he expected, and he’s taken aback at hearing it said out loud. For six thousand years, all the way back to the beginning, Aziraphale has always been resistant to their relationship, and Crowley doesn’t blame him: he’s got something to lose, after all. 

It took the angel a long time to warm up to Crowley as a professional acquaintance, and even longer to call him a friend, and Crowley has been – not quite resigned, because he isn’t bitter or disappointed about it, but Crowley has accepted that friendship for what it is, has accepted that his desires for something else are all fantasy. But now… now, Aziraphale has said  _ Yes, _ and that could change things, Crowley thinks.

Still, he shouldn't get his hopes up, he reminds himself. "But – even though I'm a demon?"

"You're not just any demon," Aziraphale says.

"I am," Crowley mutters a bit petulantly, "in all the ways that count."

Aziraphale's chest squeezes a little at that. He doesn't know what Crowley considers to be the defining characteristics of a demon, but he's sure it can't be a good sign that Crowley thinks he fits that bill. He wonders, just fleetingly, an ephemeral worry, whether it might not be true. But he knows Crowley. He trusts Crowley. 

"No, you aren't," he says firmly, trying to convince Crowley of what he knows for certain in his heart.

Crowley levels him with an icy glare, catching him off guard. "I know you'd like to think that," he snaps. "I know it would make you feel better about yourself, to think that you've found the one demon who's different. I may be smarter than most of them, and I may not  _ like _ them, but I am… fundamentally one of them."

Setting his jaw, Aziraphale meets the demon's eyes with an equally sharp gaze. "People are more than  _ fundamentals, _ Crowley." His lip starts to quiver, and he bites down on it, hard, and takes a deep breath. "I'm not stupid. I'm not naïve enough to think that you could just – just  _ not _ be a demon."

"Then how? How could you possibly…" He can't bear to finish the thought, to utter the words again. 

Aziraphale heaves a sigh, closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, then lets it all go and speaks in a broken whisper. "Crowley, do you think you could ever love  _ me?" _

"Don't be ridiculous," the demon replies without missing a beat. "I could never not love you."

The look in the angel's eyes is wondering, confused, hopeful. A bit angry, still. “Do you think?” He takes a meaningful pause, looking pointedly at Crowley. “Even though you’re a demon?”

This pulls Crowley up short. “I don’t – I’m – yes,” he stammers, just shy of being offended. “As if that would stop me.”

“Demons don’t love,” Aziraphale explains, wincing slightly at the sound of the words leaving his mouth. “They especially don’t love angels.”

“Demons certainly  _ do  _ love,” Crowley declares indignantly, and then his eyes widen, his voice rises. “Do you think that I don’t, or – or that I can’t? Is that what they tell you about us, up there?”

Aziraphale bites his lip. “Erm, yes," he says, sounding small, and then he sits up a bit straighter, speaks clearer. "No, I mean, I know  _ you _ can. It’s just that, you know – I mean, angels, we work in love, right? But you lot aren’t supposed to… well, it’s not really your scene, is it? You shouldn’t – shouldn’t have those feelings.”

“Fuck that. It’s not the  _ job. _ That doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

A beat, then Aziraphale ventures to ask, “So you do, then? Love me?”

Crowley lets out a pained sigh, rubbing his eyes roughly with the heels of his hands. “Yes, angel, I do.”

“But you don’t believe that I could love you?”

Shaking his head, Crowley reaches for his drink again, takes a hearty swig before answering the question. “No, I don’t,” he says simply.

"Why, look you now," Aziraphale murmurs, "how unworthy a thing you make of me." Crowley doesn't respond, just looks at the angel with his eyes soft and his lips parted slightly, so Aziraphale presses on to explain. 

"I don't think that's fair," he says, and his voice is gentle, but there's a sadness underneath it. "You saying that, like it should be obvious."

Crowley pauses now, hesitates for a long time before asking, "Isn't it?"

Aziraphale tilts his head at an angle, puzzled and hurt. He looks at Crowley for a long moment, just thinking and observing, and then he speaks up again. "Remember when you tried to explain eternity to me?"

Crowley narrows his eyes. "Sure, yeah."

"You said… I don't recall exactly what you said. There was an elaborate metaphor with a bird and a mountain and a spaceship."

"Wasn't that elaborate," Crowley teases, even through his mix of confusion and guilt and resignation. "You were just smashed out of your mind."

Aziraphale frowns, shaking his head. "Whatever," he says testily, "that's not the point. The point is, you told me, you said when the bird had ground the mountain all the way down… you remember?"

"You still won't have finished watching  _ The Sound of Music," _ Crowley mumbles faintly.

"Right," Aziraphale says. "Anyway, so my point is, I didn't get it. Not really. I had never felt eternity so intimately, it was always just a fact of life. But you…" He shakes his head again, looking sadly at Crowley. "You know eternity, don't you? That's a thing you really get perspective on in Hell, I bet."

Crowley nods, a bit numb. "Yeah," he says, "it's forever."

"It's forever," Aziraphale echoes. "I didn't realize what that meant, until I considered the possibility of a forever without you."

“Don’t mock me, angel.” The demon’s voice is low and ragged, tired and sad. “That’s not love. You’d be bored without me, that’s all, and you’d get over it soon enough.”

Aziraphale interlocks his fingers, digs his nails into his skin. “I could exist without you, I could survive. But I would never – I would  _ never  _ be the same.”

Crowley presses his lips together, closes his eyes. “You’d be better off,” he mutters.

“Are you trying to be cruel? Are you trying to push me away? It won’t work,” the angel states sternly, matter-of-factly. “I know exactly who you are, and I do love you, and you can’t make me change my mind.”

A sharp bark of laughter escapes Crowley’s mouth; it surprises him as much as Aziraphale. “Sorry,” he mutters sheepishly, but he’s still smiling. “Sorry, it’s just… I’ve dreamed about you loving me, you know, for so long. I’ve imagined a hundred thousand different romantic confessions, always an idealized little picture of me and you – in the rain, or lit by candles, or underneath the stars, because it’s a fantasy.” He laughs again, a breathy, joyous giggle. “But that… that was such a characteristically Aziraphale way to do it, I could almost believe it’s true.”

“It  _ is _ true,” Aziraphale insists earnestly. “Why are you so intent on convincing yourself otherwise?”

Crowley’s smile fades slowly until it’s completely gone, and a lump rises in his throat. “Because as soon as I accept it, that’s when I wake up,” he whispers. “And the higher my hopes get, the more it hurts when it disappears.”

Aziraphale is almost positive that he can both feel and hear his own heart breaking, but he moves past that quickly enough; it isn’t as if he needs it. What he needs more than anything right now is to make Crowley smile again, whatever it takes. 

“I’ve dreamed about it too, you know,” he says airily, as if it’s a casual statement. “I tried – I tried not to, actually. Because I knew it couldn’t ever happen, and I do try to be practical.”

“You’re smart,” Crowley says, sounding faint and distant.

“But,” Aziraphale raises his voice a bit and continues as if uninterrupted, “I’ve thought about it anyway, is the point. Can’t stop myself, no matter what I do, it always comes around to you. Crowley, I’m captivated by you.”

Crowley shakes his head in exasperation, summoning all his patience. “You’re captivated by a good book,” he explains, in the manner of one who rather thinks their partner should be getting it by now. “I’m interesting, Aziraphale. I’m a funny old demon, I'm entertaining enough to call your friend, but you don't  _ love _ me. You can't."

"And why not, pray tell?"

"Because I'm – and you're –  _ angel," _ Crowley moans wretchedly.

Aziraphale purses his lips and glares daggers at him. "What, Crowley? By all means, go ahead and tell me how I feel."

"You can't just… forget that I'm a demon," Crowley mumbles, "or ignore it."

"That's true, I can't," the angel replies simply, "and I wouldn't want to."

Crowley looks at the angel with pain and confusion in his eyes. "So, what? You're trying to be adventurous, is that it? You want to dip your toes in with a demon, get a taste of evil, stick it to Heaven one more time?"

Aziraphale's face falls, his stomach churning. "I don't want you because you're a demon," he whispers, his voice breaking,  _ "or _ in spite of it. I love  _ you."  _ He takes a breath, pauses to compose himself to an extent. 

"You said you were afraid, earlier, and you never explained properly. What are you afraid of, Crowley?"

"I'm terrified of losing you," the demon answers quietly, looking down and away. "Always have been, but especially now."

"I'm telling you right now that I'm not going anywhere," Aziraphale says fervently, reaching across the table to put his hand over Crowley's like a protective blanket. "I'm not going anywhere, do you understand that? Not ever, so I'm sorry, but you'll have to find something else to be irrationally insecure about."

Crowley grits his teeth. "I’m not irrational," he hisses.

"I know you aren't," the angel says hastily, speaking in soothing tones and tightening his hand on Crowley's. “I’m only saying, if you’re afraid of me leaving you… it’s not going to happen. I’m here forever.”

Crowley opens his mouth to protest, and Aziraphale gives him the soft pitying look that he hates so much, and Crowley is too upset already to even notice it. “My dearest,” the angel murmurs, and Crowley definitely notices  _ that, _ and his heart beats so hard in his chest that he fears his ribs will break, and he forces himself to focus on Aziraphale, to listen to what he’s saying. 

“I don’t make empty promises, Crowley. I don’t take eternity lightly and I don’t give love in pieces.”

There’s a brief pause while Crowley bites back a pathetic moan, attempts to school his face into a more neutral expression, then looks up at the angel. Again, Aziraphale begins speaking before Crowley gets the chance. 

“I used to think a lot of things that were very wrong,” he says, his tone shifted to something akin to a university lecturer. “I won’t discount the possibility that I may still be wrong about some things. A long time ago, I thought – it seems patently ridiculous now, of course, but when we met, I thought they might cast me out just for speaking to you.”

Crowley can’t help a little huff of a laugh, though his thoughts are predominantly focused on wondering where Aziraphale is going with this, exactly. The angel’s hand is still on his, warm and sturdy and safe, and he feels suddenly very calm about the whole situation. He waits for Aziraphale to continue.

“They didn’t, obviously,” the angel says. “But then I thought… if talking was alright, I thought it was important that I didn’t, erm. Get too cozy, as it were. I thought I would be in trouble if I – if I laughed with you, or agreed with you, or liked you.”

Crowley nods. He knows that Aziraphale has historically put distance between them because he has notions about how angels are meant to behave; he has always tried to be somewhat understanding when the angel gets proud and condescending. But he thought it was just that – Aziraphale’s fixation upon being a good angel, his insistence upon drawing a line between himself and Crowley – just pride. The fact that Aziraphale was once afraid of being punished or cast out of Heaven just for  _ associating  _ with him, and that he did it anyway – that realization is a blow. 

It must be evident in his face somewhere, because Aziraphale gives a sympathetic little tut, his eyes softening even further, and sighs. “But I learned, Crowley, don’t you see? I had to learn how to know you, and how to like you, and how to love you, because I was stubborn. I didn’t want to admit that I was wrong, but you  _ made  _ me admit it, just by being yourself.”

Crowley furrows his brow, his gaze shifting between Aziraphale’s face and his hand on the table. “I don’t understand,” he mutters softly.

“I’m saying…” Aziraphale takes a deep breath and lets it out in a long exhale. “What I’m saying is that once upon a time, I thought Heaven was always good and right. I thought demons were evil and incapable of love, and I never would have considered the possibility of falling in love with one, myself. I was… I was set in those beliefs, so set that I ignored evidence to the contrary to avoid having to question myself.” 

Aziraphale laughs, a small breathy chuckle, and shakes his head. “I mean – you know how stubborn I am, don’t you? More than anyone, I expect.”

“I do,” the demon whispers.

“So you know – you must know, Crowley, how much it would take to make me come around to an idea that I’d fought so vehemently against.” Aziraphale looks at him expectantly, as if the conclusion should be obvious, but Crowley can’t connect the dots. “I could never have seen how wrong I was if you hadn’t  _ proved  _ me wrong. Over and over again, you proved me wrong, you see? I could never have admitted to loving you if you hadn’t shown yourself to be so thoroughly, profoundly,  _ completely  _ deserving of love.”

Crowley swallows and blinks hard, silently threatening the tears in his eyes with a painful fate if they dare to fall down his cheeks.

“Do you get it now?” Aziraphale raises a hand to cup the demon’s cheek, gently guiding him to make eye contact. “I promise you all of my love, forever, because you  _ deserve  _ it.”

His eyes wide and watery, the demon looks a bit like a deer in headlights for a long moment, leaning into the warm hand holding his face. He manages a shaky inhale after a while, one that threatens to turn into a sob before he swallows it down and exhales steadily.

"Angel," he murmurs, his voice small and fragile. "What if – what if you were right?"

"Right about what, my dear?"

"What if something bad happens to you for loving me?"

Aziraphale shakes his head fondly, leans in and presses a warm, chaste kiss to Crowley's lips, rubbing his thumb along the demon's sharp cheekbone. He pulls back only a few inches, looking into Crowley's eyes at an intimate distance, and he smiles. 

"Permit me to say something you really won't like?"

"Go ahead," Crowley breathes.

"If Heaven didn't want me to love you," the angel whispers, tender and warm and affectionate, "then I should have Fallen a long time ago."

Crowley closes his eyes, breathes in, breathes out, processing what Aziraphale has said. "You mean –"

"You can disagree if you must," Aziraphale says, jumping to his defense. "But yes, I am saying –"

"That you think She meant for this to happen." 

Aziraphale purses his lips and nods, a bit sheepishly. "I just think – to have you in my life has been lucky enough, but to love you and be loved by you is simply – well, I just can't believe that it happened by accident."

Crowley snorts gently, rolling his eyes, and then lets it go. "That's fine, angel," he says amicably. "If this is what She's doing with all that power, then it certainly could be worse."

Aziraphale studies the demon’s face with a look of careful consideration, searching for something he can’t quite name. The lines around Crowley’s eyes and mouth are soft, his jaw relaxed; he looks genuinely at peace and slightly amused, for which Aziraphale is immensely grateful. 

"You're not a pawn," he says abruptly. "You're a person, and you're in control of yourself, I need you to know that. If the Almighty has – has been guiding us, somehow, then it only worked because of who we are and the decisions we’ve made.”

"Thank you," Crowley says, his voice thick. It feels inadequate, two words to express the inexpressible, but he trusts that Aziraphale knows how much it means. “I love you,” he adds, a bit lamely. It isn’t enough, it’s never enough. "I would love you no matter what, even if a thousand Gods tried to stop me. I would choose you, every time."

Aziraphale feels the words all the way down to his bones. If doubt is what causes angels to Fall, he thinks, then he’s safer now than ever, because all he knows is faith. All he knows is love, and he’s never before been so absolutely certain that he’s feeling the right feelings and doing the right things. A shiver runs down his spine and he rolls his shoulders, suddenly feeling quite unburdened, feeling light.

Crowley shivers as well, and then he rolls his shoulders, and he leans forward in his seat, watching the angel. All of his previous worries are forgotten now; somehow, finally, he has what he needs. Crowley has spent a long, long time trying to prove something – that he doesn’t need Her, that he doesn’t need Heaven, that he’s better than what they think of him – and now, for the first time, he feels an unbearable freedom, untethered from any connection to them at all. 

Like the tilting of an axis, Aziraphale thinks.

Like the shifting of an orbit, Crowley thinks.

Like the convergence of two segments of the lithosphere, like the impact of a meteor, like the empty lot left over after a building has been demolished, like water frozen and thawed again, like the loosening of a tie.

But, really, nothing has changed.


End file.
